WSEA699 Posted November 3 Report Posted November 3 Hi all! Putting together a comms bug out out bag and looking for some direction. I've already secured a Fara-J antenna and throw line. What coax would you recommend that is lightweight yet good quality? Looking for about 50 ft. Also any recommendations for sbiners. Thank you in advance! Socalgmrs 1 Quote
Guest Posted November 3 Report Posted November 3 I offer this resource: https://kv5r.com/ham-radio/coax-loss-calculator/ And I make a suggestion to set some sort of reminder or alarm to check the status of your batteries on a regular schedule. A ready bag is really a good idea but it's not a make and forget thing when batteries get involved. REI has so many 'beaners that your likely to get a shiny-hemorrhage in your brain should you go look Quote
Lscott Posted November 4 Report Posted November 4 20 hours ago, WSEA699 said: Hi all! Putting together a comms bug out out bag and looking for some direction. I've already secured a Fara-J antenna and throw line. What coax would you recommend that is lightweight yet good quality? Looking for about 50 ft. Also any recommendations for sbiners. Thank you in advance! I would recommend using RG-8X cable. It has far less loss than the typical RG-58 type and just slightly larger in diameter. You can use larger coax like LMR-400, less loss, but its much more bulky and heavy. But for a portable application I would assume you would like something small, light and easy to carry. All my portable radios I typically use BNC connectors. Those don't cause SWR problems and are low loss when using quality types. You can find adapters from just about any connector type to BNC. I have BNC adapters for all of my radios. I would use the minimum length of coax to get the job done. The link below is for a 25 foot RG-8X cable with male BNC connectors on the end. If you really need 50 feet then use two with a BNC barrel adapter. Otherwise the 25 foot one would likely be more than enough. https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-8xdb025 I use a portable mast system with about 25 to 30 feet of RG-58 cable. The higher loss on the cable helps to keep the SWR on the antenna down below 2:1. That's a trade off I made and I had the cable already. If a find a good buy on a RG-8X jumper cable I'll swap out the RG-58. https://forums.mygmrs.com/gallery/image/257-portable-mast-antenna-system/ WRXB215 1 Quote
WSEA699 Posted November 4 Author Report Posted November 4 Perfect, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you! Quote
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